My 2.9 year old doesn’t have enough toys?

[Toffee2]

I recently visited a friends and the house was full of toys in every room. It was a bit too much for me but I left feeling guilty my son didn’t have half the toys.
He has

• A bus
• A Police car
• 3 dinosaurs
• A wooden puzzle
• Books
• Crayons and colouring books
• Tonies box
• Building blocks
• Handful of teddies
• Garden digger and ride on car

Am I going crazy?
It’s his birthday in a couple months and haven’t a clue what else to buy him. FTM mum here so clearly got too much time on my hands !

duplo / lego ?

or is that what you mean by building bricks ?

a garage and more cars

a farmyard set ?

toy kitchen / play food / pot and pats / plates / cups etc.
or we'll be sexist and suggest a toy workshop / joinery thing

more puzzles

role play i.e. dressing up / doctors set

more cars

a wooden train set ( Asda sell one that i think is very reasonable )

playdoh etc.

I actually don’t think that’s enough unless he is at nursery full time or you go out all day. You could get him a car mat, some play dough, more cars, painting things, a kitchen, a play house for outside (if you want ideas for his birthday).

I would try not to judge others for having more. A lot may have been bought by grandparents etc.

It does seem a bit limited.
Some other ideas
Play food, pans, toy kitchen
Duplo
Train set
Balls
Playmobil (vehicles, boats and water based ones are favourites here)
Play dough
Kinetic sand
Paint sticks
Scissors and pritt stick
Balance bike
Toy musical instruments
Toy cars, garage
Dolls house
Toy farm and animals
Magnetic fishing
Toy pram

These things get played with constantly in our house. Most of it is secondhand so don't feel you have to spend a fortune. You will probably need an IKEA kallax to store it all in as well

Oh and we have a basket of Brio. Every toddler should have brio, it's wonderful stuff.

What does your son do all day at home with so few toys? My son plays well independently but he will lay out Brio tracks, build things with the Duplo, play with the sand tray. There's no shortage of things to keep him amused. I mean, we still sometimes make junk models with stuff from the recycling bin, or make dens with the bed sheets. But they do also need toys of their own.

He’s at nursery 2 mornings a week and the rest of the week we do a sports class, a gymnastics class, a swimming lesson and toddler groups / soft plays with friends etc.
He’s a very active boy so I’m always out with him and we’ve spent little time at home but lately we have been at home more so I was thinking he didn’t have enough toys.

Agree. 90% of my son's toys are second hand. IKEA kitchen was £25 on Facebook marketplace and came with utensils.

She's listed what her son has not what her friends child has

Oh, sorry I read "He" as being the friend's child.

Thankyou for all these suggestions! I’m actually really excited about all these ideas!

I'm that mum with loads of toys! People keep buying (grandparents) less is more, I rotate and it's a LOT of work

We're out more than we're in too so I get what you mean. But I think you should expand his play options a bit now. Invest in some things that can be played with in a variety of ways. My son likes to lay out the train tracks but make tunnels with the Duplo. Or we'll make ramps for his cars from the magnet tiles and so on. Open-ended toys are better than toys that can only do one thing.

When my first child was that sort of age we didn't have a lot either. I went a bit mad one Christmas and bought several new (second hand) things, it made being at home so much more pleasant as they could entertain themselves. Honestly a revelation. I keep it all in separate boxes and they ask for the car box or the food box etc. So it doesn't get out of hand. Or that's the theory anyway.

Mine both love tea sets too

Actually looking back I regret that mine had too many toys. They really don't need it!

I think a wooden train set is great idea. I'd also go for farm set with animals, farmer and bits and pieces and a tractor and trailer with hay bales. Then think about combining what he has to play with him. So use his blocks to make fields for the farm animals and a house for the farmer, use the tractor to take bales to feed the animals, build a dairy to milk the cows, pretend to shear the sheep, have a cow escape etc. Have the digger come and do some digging.

Build the wooden train set together, use his blocks to build a station and some houses, have the train drive around and stop at different stations to pick people up, pretend a tree (block) falls on the line and the train has to back up while the line is cleared by the digger etc

Make a dinosaur zoo with the dinosaurs and blocks, feed the dinosaurs with the tractor and trailer, have some people come and visit the zoo, have a dinosaur escape and call the police and have the police come and get it back in. Have the digger dig a big trench round the dinosaur cages so the can't escape.

Kids can learn so much from this sort of small world play.

Agree with this. Our DD is a very similar age and has all of what your LO has, plus:

• dressing up box
• play kitchen (and foods/ saucepans etc.)
• flash cards
• balls
• car garage
• dolls and associated role playing items
• balance bike
• tea set
• easel and paints
• post box (and letters/stamps etc.)
• wooden rocket ship
• dolls house (and furniture/ dolls etc.)
• musical instruments (although I would not recommend buying a recorder, you'll regret it...)
• Duplo
• slide

We don't have lots of space or money, but buy things second hand online or at car boot sales. Ask relatives for presents or to gift experiences/gift cards so we can buy presents. Also buy all through the year so it's not an expense all at once.

My boys didn't play much with toys in the end tbh, the only things that were probably worth were:

• Balls - if he's a boisterous, outdoorsy kind of boy, your going to need loads of these
• Balance bike
• Scooter
• Duplo
• train set (just about earned its keep)
• a big truck you can run up and down with

When older:

• nerf guns (sorry)
• Lego
• trampoline

The rest was probably a waste of money. What was essential was trips outside the house everyday - park, playground, farm park, zoo, swimming etc.

Sometimes wonder if it's parents of girls with all these toys in the house - never had the need with my sons, they were more 'gross motor skills' orientated. Seems to be the same amongst their friends too.

Also if you buy second hand, you can move it on again if he doesn't play with it, or buy bigger items and not feel obliged to keep them forever. I see our local charity shop as being like a toy hire place. They also really love choosing their own toys from the charity shop if you have one with a decent toy section nearby. Facebook marketplace is also great for toys.

My son is definitely happiest in the garden barefoot digging mud and collecting sticks haha We are renting so I can’t go mad in the garden but I will look into second hand garden bits

Loads of great ideas here.
I also find toys everywhere hard to cope with but I have 2x toddlers and we have a lot more than that what you've said, but still half of what some friends have! You can still keep toys contained to a certain area and I love the kallax boxes so I can't see them! Some in their rooms and some downstairs.
I don't feel like we have enough toys to rotate, that's something I definitely want to do more of as they get older.

I always found that my kids used to have lots of toys but would always revert back to the same thing which was usually colouring. He sounds like he has plenty but have you got a charity shop near by? You can pick up all sorts of things there and because they’re not in boxes it’s amazing what children will hone in on. If they don’t play with them much it’s not a massive expense and you can always redonate them.

I also think we have a lot and then I go to friends houses and 🤯🤯🤯

I think a lot of that comes down more to too many toys that can't be categorised. If you have baskets of themed things "farm", "blocks", "train set" and so on, it's easier to store and do toy rotation. Also easier to tidy and get kids involved in tidying because they can see where things go.

I see friends' houses full of all sorts of random toys that just sort of beep and flash and don't do much. I think they end up being a nightmare to store.

I think it depends how much TV they watch more than anything. If you don't have the TV on much they need to fill the time. If it's on whenever you're home or they have tablets they will watch it and play much less. I'm guilty of using TV to minimise mess and fighting far too much, but when it goes off is when they actually use their toys

Even boys need stuff to do indoors during the half hour or hour gaps when you're cooking or after dinner before bed or whatever.

My boy likes all the small world and pretend play just as much as his sister. They both like jumping off the furniture too. The main difference is my boy is much more inclined to fiddle about with stuff and often break it or take it apart. My girl is more inclined to organise her toys, put them in bags and boxes and very rarely breaks anything

Maybe he might enjoy a mud kitchen then?

Brio train set was always a winner in our house.

Ooh. And look at open ended toys like Grimms and Grapat.

We have quite a lot of those sorts of things, Grimms rainbows, large stepped pyramid, Grapat small pieces, nins etc. and they can be used for all sorts of things.

If you have the space I’d definitely look at something for role play or small world play. My younger DC is 4 now but over the last year or so he’s loved dressing up, his toy kitchen and shop (with play food), and his Playmobil/Peppa Pig dolls house.

My nephews have a mud kitchen which looks like great fun!